The New Jersey Department of Health and Senior Services received the Nicholas E. Davies Public Health Award of Excellence for the Department’s innovative Communicable Disease Reporting and Surveillance System (CDRSS), a web-enabled, electronic reporting system from the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS).

The Nicholas E. Davies Award of Excellence for Public Health is awarded to a state, local or tribal public health program that has improved the health of communities through health information management. The Department received this award last month at the recent Sixth Annual Public Health Information Network Conference in Atlanta.

The Department’s Communicable Disease Service (CDS) worked with Office of Information Technology Services staff to develop the CDRSS. The system provides real-time reporting and investigating of communicable diseases, 24 hours per day, 7 days per week. New Jersey law requires that certain communicable diseases be reported to the Department.CDRSS is the primary tool for reporting and managing information on communicable diseases that are reportable to the state by local public health and health care partners. CDS, local health and hospital staff regularly monitor CDRSS data to identify potential outbreaks and to record information related to routine communicable disease investigations.

“This award is a testament to the Department’s commitment to protecting the health of New Jersey’s residents,” said Commissioner Howard. “CDRSS is an innovative tool that enhances the Department’sand local health departments’ abilities to monitor the incidence and prevalence of communicable and infectious diseases in the state.”

CDRSS facilitates communication among public health providers, and e-mail alerts instantly inform state and local health department staff of new reports from hospitals and laboratories.This improved timeliness of reporting is critical for early detection of outbreaks. For example, during summer 2004, this system allowed CDS staff to note an increase in Salmonella berta incidence in the Trenton area, prompting quick evaluation of regional hospital and laboratory data. Early recognition of increasing incidence helped implementation of enhanced surveillance which subsequently identified additional Salmonella berta clusters in neighboring states and in turn led to rapid implementation of outbreak control measures.

There are currently over 2,000 trained users covering various public health partners which include public health nurses, epidemiologists, health officers, clerical and administrative support staff, public health educators, hospital infection control professionals, and laboratory staff. There are trained users in each of the 114 local health departments which cover 566 municipalities in 21 counties. Other partners include the 22 Local Information Network and Communications System or LINCS agencies, and 74 acute care hospitals and medical centers. Cases are created in CDRSS through electronic transmissions from LabCorp and paper reports from other clinical laboratories that are entered by CDS, local health and hospital staff. Approximately 30,000 communicable disease cases are reported per year through the CDRSS.

About the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society

HIMSS is the healthcare industry's membership organization exclusively focused on providing global leadership for the optimal use of healthcare information technology (IT) and management systems for the betterment of healthcare. Founded in 1961 with offices in Chicago, Washington D.C., Brussels, and other locations across the United States and Europe, HIMSS represents more than 20,000 individual members and over 300 corporate members that collectively represent organizations employing millions of people.